Is this the town that launched a thousand blog posts?

Here I am in Troy, MT (hence the somewhat obscure literary reference).

A few days ago, I entertained the possibility that I might grow tired of pine trees and mountains. It's possible. I've seen a lot of pine trees and mountains at this point, on and off pretty consistently since, like, September, so it would be a valid thought. But no, it is still really beautiful out out here.

I don't think I used enough commas in that last paragraph.

We are looking at a talented and interesting cast, not to mention a full cast. This is a welcome change after last week in West Glacier saw us casting our fifty something person show with a total of 27 kids, 5 of whom caught a vomiting death virus on the day of the first performance.

Oddly enough, West Glacier, and its nearby sightseeing destination, Glacier National Park, presented little in the way of appreciable natural beauty. It was coooooold up on that mountain, and Glacier is apparently a hiker's park. I consider myself an appreciator of nature, and I'm not adverse to walking for impressive sights to see, but I do draw the line at walking in -20 degree weather up a snow covered mountain with an avalanche warning.

Little did I know that over here in Troy, there would be things to do. I've got pictures even.

That's the oft overlooked Kootenai Falls there in the background. Apparently, this is mecca for the extreme canoe enthusiasts of the world. In addition, there was this really cool swinging bridge over the Kootenai river. Beautiful stuff, and the weather really cooperated for once.

Looks like I'll have to wait on the pictures. I have them, but I'm on a ludicrously, painfully slow connection right now. It'll be enough to get this post up. I think a photo gallery post for my next entry, hopefully from some kind of connection worth having (I go to McDonald's more often now than I'd like to admit...), would be a worthwhile venture. I've seen a lot of cool stuff this tour, and I would love to show it off, but the internet is not my friend out here in the wilderness. Every tour I get a little further in the back of beyond. I predict that if I get picked up for a summer tour, they'll send me to Neptune.

That will probably require another shopping trip. In that situation I would stretch for the really warm boots. Also an oxygen tank.

Out in the Montana wilderness

So, my 1 month holiday hiatus rapidly turned into a two-month middle of nowhere and very little internet hiatus.

So here I am, four weeks into my Winter/Spring tour making my first post. Very bad.

I am now in the peculiarly named Anaconda, MT. I have not yet seen any giant snakes wandering around, but I guess you can't have everything. It's the biggest town I've been in yet, meaning it's big enough to support a coffee shop with a wireless internet connection. Amazing.

The vibe this time around is a lot different from fall tour. For one thing, I'm not in Canada. In addition to that, the company is much more established in these towns. In addition, it's a much bigger deal. In many of the towns from summer and fall tour, we never had to cut anyone. When 30 kids show up to the audition, you can't really pick and choose. For the last 4 weeks, each town has featured auditions in excess of 80. We have to go through the sometimes heartbreaking process of sending some kids home.

Montana has proved to be a bit more varied than I had given it credit for. I had sort of expected a mountainous frozen wasteland, however this is my first week with mountains, and only one of the weeks featured conditions that this comparative southerner found...ridiculous. (3 feet of snow in a day, a couple more feet over the course of the week, and average high of 2 degrees Fahrenheit, that was two weeks ago in Malta, MT).

So now I've settled into my groove, and seen several new things. Oddities like a combination laundromat/casino, and new sights, like a working coal mine. Pictures of both forthcoming. I hope.

This got pecked out in a hurry, and now I'd better go, took me forever to find this place, and now it's time for rehearsal. Adios.

Goodbye Tatla Lake

There's a lot of goodbye here. Goodbye to Tatla Lake, goodbye to Canada, goodbye to Fall Tour 2010. As I sit in my hotel room and actively procrastinate packing up to leave, I feel the need to reflect a bit.

I want to talk about Tatla. This is the most unique community I've been to yet. Unfortunately, the nature of small town politics means that stories about some of the unique characters and personalities involved would be inappropriate. The nature of this place makes its people unusual. It's quite a diverse set of unusual too. Sometimes in a small town, everyone is odd, but the same kind of odd. But here, everyone is odd in their own unique way.

We started Monday with 25 kids. This was essentially the complete population of 5-16 year old children in a 50-mile radius. The school was a relatively small building, of course, but not much smaller than some other schools I've been to. For 25 students, only 18 of which regularly attend classes (7 home-schoolers came in to participate this week), the building is a palace. You could spread the kids out and have one in each classroom. There's a lot of specialized classrooms and a rather nice gym. Unsurprisingly, the school in many ways seems to be the center of the community.

That is one of the most odd bits about this week. We didn't just cast everyone who auditioned, we cast the whole school. Classes were shut down this week and replaced with our rehearsals. We effectively gave the two teachers there a week off. But not really, they just worked on coordinating the massive undertaking that the play became.

This is definitely the smallest town we've been to, but the play has, perhaps because of that, been the biggest event we've been a part of. The whole town turned out and I'm almost being literal here. There was a massive, medieval style dinner put together to precede the show. They roasted a pig. A charity auction was held after the show to raise money for the show. I saw a real auctioneer at work. That's a sight to see, let me tell you.

The gym was transformed. A local technology buff loaned us extra lights, the bus driver from two towns over came in and played guitar for us. Rather extensive sound equipment came from...somewhere, I don't know where, it just showed up.

It's strange, I've gotten used to being thanked for what we do for the kids. And for kids that aren't used to any group over 20, being put in front of a hundred people and performing is a valuable experience. So we got the normal group of grateful parents and grandparents that are one of the highlights of my job, but in addition, there were people who told us that we were helping bring the town together.

Towns this small are a vulnerable breed, and having such a small population means that people run away, resisting the middle of nowhere. The young, in particular, flee in search of work, in search of experience, in search of other youth. They used our show to pull the community together and give them something to be proud of.

I'm not taking credit for this, by the way. It was the hard-working people who brought us here who deserve the credit. I am happy, however, that we got to be a part of it. It makes how extremely tired I am worthwhile.

Today, by the way, was very busy in final preparations. Being part of a larger event naturally increased our workload and complicated the production. Also, we started early with the kids, and what would normally be a five or six hour day became over ten hours. There were a lot of difficulties to overcome, but we overcame them. The show went off. The audience laughed and applauded. A lot of those kids were beaming as the show finished. This was a hard week, but it did remind me why this is the best job I've ever had.

The Long and Winding Road or Dining With Death

I'll explain this in a bit.

But now I'm in Tatla Lake, BC. I have reached the point farthest off the beaten track for my entire tour so far. The previous record holder was Plentywood, Montana, which was several hours from Billings and Regina in Saskatchewan. Plentywood is the center of a bustling urban metropolis compared to Tatla. It's about 150 miles of dangerous two lane country highway to reach the next small town. It's got a McDonald's and a grocery store. And because this is Canada, a Tim Horton's.

If one wants more than a grocery store and fast food, it's 8 hours to Prince George or Kamloops, roughly Missoula-sized cities of the Canadian interior (actually, a bit bigger). This means that if you want to buy a new TV, you have to factor in the cost of the hotel room.

Needless to say, the journey here was a bit...complicated. Murphy's Law came into play at several points. We had originally made plans to stay in a small town called Ashcroft, where we would find some people to stay with. Dear old Murphy, however, dictated that in this case where we had the longest to go, the most obstacles would fall in our path. Therefore, my flight from St. Louis was delayed, followed by the most aggressive grilling at the Canadian border yet. Our first two crossings were pretty easy, so my spider sense was telling me that we were due for a difficult crossing. And I was right. Two hours at a border station where I was accused of having a criminal record. "You hesitated before you said 'no.' Why was that sir?" I refrained from saying "because I haven't slept in a bed for 36 hours and 'have you ever been arrested' is not a question I'm asked very often."

After ascertaining that we were neither smugglers, kidnappers, or deliberately flouting Canadian immigration law, we were sent on our way with papers saying "get the hell out of Canada by the 6th of December."

And then it snowed. And then there was a landslide. And we stayed the night at the Yale Motel in Yale, BC. There we learned an important lesson: check the heating before you stay at a motel in winter. You may think it goes without saying that if staying in a motel north of the 49th parallel, there will at least be adequate heating. This is an inaccurate assumption. Coldest night I've ever spent outside of a sleeping bag.

And then came this morning and the rest of the trip. We left civilization far, far behind us. Snowy, crappy roads. Road grit flaring up and blocking the windshield as well as, we later learned, the headlights. We saw signs warning us to be aware of the crossings of bears, badgers, deer, and/or bighorn sheep. While we saw the deer and the bighorn sheep, we only had to stop for a group of horses that were in the middle of the road on the last highway. Don't know what they were doing or where they were going. Probably never will.

I forgot to add, we have been well outside of cell service for 90% of our time since we crossed the border. The region that Trans-Canada 1 (our main northward route) passes through is the Fraser Canyon, and few cell towers penetrate it. Shortly after leaving Yale, we hit one of those rare spots, and learned that our home office was convinced we were stuck in the rockslide and dead. We had seen a section of TC 1 that was a bit confused looking, lots of construction cones and flashing signs, but we did get through. Apparently, this was the site of a major rockslide. The slide had been cleared, allowing us to slip through, but was shortly closed again so that engineers could do some demolition to prevent further rockslides. We got lucky.

We also stopped here:


That, for those with smaller screens, is the Elvis Rocks the Canyon Cafe. It also has a picture of a man in a fedora on its warning sign.

We also had one further diner for breakfast. Our friend from the top of this post.

Finally, however, we arrived here in Tatla Lake, where we are staying at the Tatla Lake Manor. This place has all the perks of a homestay AND all the perks of a hotel. We have our own rooms and bathrooms. We also have a nice older lady cooking meals for us and joining us for dinner. All the guests are together for dinner. I feel like I'm staying at some old English Inn from a Dickens novel. It's gonna be something else. This means we get to meet the other travelers gathering at the Tatla Lake Manor. We already met one old road worker who talked about dangerous animals for an hour.

Ok, this has been a rather longish post for me, so I'm going to sign off for now. Tomorrow I'm going to have some pictures of the area. I'm told it's beautiful, but we arrived in the dark. The sun set at 5:00 today. We are north.

Canada: The Return

So here I am at the close of my first performance here in Oliver, BC

Oliver is, according to the signage here, the wine capital of Canada, a title I can't say I knew was there to be claimed. It's also on the edge of Canada's only desert, another title I can't say I knew was there to be claimed. I have to admit I subscribed to the rather unfair generalization that Canada as a general rule meant mountains, trees, and snow.

My apologies, nation of Canada, you have variety.

Here in Oliver, I'm putting together what may be the best show we've done to date, due in part to the over 30 high school students in the cast. Not only do they do excellent work themselves, but they provide excellent examples and leadership for the rest of the cast. My job was easy this week.

We also did no fewer than 8 workshops. In the average week, we do 3. That's a little extra cash in our pockets, but wow is it exhausting.

Saturday Addendum

Today I have to cross the border to buy tire chains. Because the airlines are jerks, I got a surprise rearrangement of my flight details. I now will be leaving immediately after tonight's performance. This is a pain in the neck, to say the very least. I will driving through the night, through the snow, to arrive in Seattle on time for my flight.

I'm not predicting disaster, just annoyance.

Next week it's back for Thanksgiving. I shall put gravy on everything.

Springtime for Hitler

So, I'm back in Missoula this week, we had no bookings, and as some of you may have guessed from my title, I've become involved in a production of The Producers.
As much as I love working King Arthur's Quest, (and I mean that without irony) it is nice to be working on a "grown-up" play. One of their running crew techs came down with a nasty case of pneumonia and I got called in to be her substitute.
It has been great. I've had a chance to actually talk to and meet people roughly my own age as opposed to significantly younger or significantly older. I feel like my batteries are really recharged for these last two weeks of tour.
The people backstage keep thanking me for my work. They don't realize that this is not work in my book. I'm not managing several dozen children, I don't have an enormous amount of responsibility that I share with one other person. I dress in black and push scenery around while getting to watch a rather good production of The Producers every night. And my time spent as a techie is time spent not building script boxes.
One thing that both this week and Vancouver have driven home for me is that traveling completely alone is a lot less fun than even one more person. Strangers don't want to have much to do with a lone person. A lone person looks sketchy. So being alone is inherently isolating, which sucks, because the lone person needs to break the isolation the most.
That's why I've loved being on the show. I get to socialize for once. I'm new, but I'm not alone. My presence is understood and known and, best of all, appreciated. All in all a good week. I'm kind of sorry to be leaving Missoula behind, as I've run into a bunch of people that in another situation I'd like to get the chance to spend more time with.
Well, that's really all there is. My air mattress is inflated, and the alarms are set. Time to go to bed. I think the girl I replaced is better, so maybe I'll just watch the show tomorrow.

The Local Flavor

There is a myth, perpetrated by The Food Network, that the world is just full to bursting with little culinary gems in out of the way places. They would have you believe that as you travel, that dive around the corner has, I don't know, the best chili fries in the western hemisphere or something.

This is a myth.

Now, while the experts of The Food Network may go miles and miles and find spectacular offerings, the sad truth is that this is actually pretty uncommon.

I have often heard the statement, with dubious logical backing, that "it's the only place in town, it MUST be good."

That is madness. If it's the only place in town, it means it doesn't have to be good. They have no competition. These places usually are serving you poorly prepared food in a crappy environment on paper plates.

On the road, we've actually started preferring chains to local places. Chains enforce a minimum standard of quality that's usually a couple notches higher than the local place.

That being said, here's the way to find the good ones.

1) Ask the locals. The locals always know if they've got a hidden gem. Hankinson, ND had two restaurants: The Hot Cakes Bed and Breakfast or The Dakota Drive-in. When asked, the locals knew for certain which one was better. The Hot Cakes served an amazing breakfast menu and everyone knew it. The Dakota, well, it was ok. And that's what everyone would tell you. If a local isn't bragging about it, it's not worth even the experiment.

2) Know what to order. Most local places have a specialty, the thing that everyone knows to go looking for. There was another place in North Dakota, Steele, I think, that everything on its menu was crap except the excellent fried pickles. Usually, the waitress knows the specialty. If she doesn't, go back to rule #1.

3) Give up on healthy. If you are in a local establishment in the Midwest, The Mountain Time Zone, or south of the Mason-Dixon line, never, ever, ever order the salad. You will receive white to transparent iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing on it. I am being dead serious when I say that McDonald's has a better salad than the average local place.

4) Exception: This rule does not apply to any city with a population over 50,000. At that point, the local competition is fierce enough and the chains have enough presence that the local spots have to be good or they get forced out. Most major metropolitan areas have excellent local eating scenes. They also usually have a website devoted to finding them.

5) When in Doubt, Get the Hamburger. Hamburgers are extremely difficult to mess up, and for most of these places, it's their staple. That makes the hamburger the safest choice on the road.

That's it for tonight, I just wanted to get my "veteran traveler" testimonial out there for the next time I hear someone talk about trying "the local flavor."